Former Facebook manager says the company is failing black people

Facebook “has a black people problem,” according to Mark Luckie, a now-former manager of partnerships at Facebook. Luckie, whose last day at Facebook was earlier this month, just posted an internal memo he sent to his colleagues that argues Facebook is failing its black employees, as well as its black users.

At Facebook, Luckie served as strategic partner manager for global influencers focused on underrepresented voices for a little over one year. During his time there, Luckie said he “heard far too many stories from black employees of a colleague or manager calling them ‘hostile’ or ‘aggressive’ for simply sharing their thoughts in a manner not dissimilar from their non-black team members.”

Luckie went on to describe how some black employees said their managers dissuaded them from participating in the employee resource group for black employees. On top of that, “too many black employees can recount stories of being aggressively accosted by campus security beyond what was necessary.”

Mark S. Luckie

Regarding human resources, Luckie said the department too often protects managers rather than the people actually filing the complaints.

On the user side, Luckie describes less-than-positive experiences from black people who find “that their attempts to create ‘safe spaces’ on Facebook for conversation among themselves are being derailed by the platform itself.”

Luckie has never been one to stay silent around issues of discrimination,